6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:27PM EDT · Published Sep 21, 4:57AM EDT

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U.S. stocks hit all-time highs. According to The Wall Street Journal:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 set new highs Thursday, kindling hopes among some investors that buoyant U.S. stocks are on track to exceed Wall Street’s performance expectations for 2018.

The blue chips surged more than 250 points to cap a three-day run of gains, the latest leg of a nine-year rally that hurtled the index to its first record close since Jan. 26. The stock market’s rise has coincided with a pause in the U.S. dollar’s climb and a recent spike in government-bond yields, a signal investors are viewing next week’s expected increase in interest rates from the Federal Reserve as a testament to the strength of the economy.

The battle between AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and the U.S. government has heated up. According to The Wall Street Journal:

AT&T Inc. on Thursday defended a court ruling that allowed it to buy Time Warner, arguing that both the law and current industry realities showed the acquisition wouldn’t harm competition.

The telecom giant made its case for the deal in a 59-page brief filed with a Washington, D.C., federal appeals court, which is considering the Justice Department’s ongoing challenge to the merger.

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Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) plans massive layoffs. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Wells Fargo & Co. plans to cut as many as 26,500 jobs over the next three years as it adjusts to changing consumer behavior and works to recover from a series of scandals that have gripped the bank for the past two years.

The bank on Thursday said it expects head count to fall by about 5% to 10%, including layoffs as well as typical attrition. Wells Fargo had about 265,000 employees at the end of the second quarter.

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) lost another member of top management. According to CNBC:

Tesla is losing another executive — its vice president of global supply management Liam O’Connor, is said to be leaving the electric vehicle maker.

News of his departure was first reported by Bloomberg. Select company insiders also knew he had resigned, according to a person familiar with the matter. Neither Tesla nor O’Connor responded to requests for further information.

Uber may buy a food delivery company. According to CNBC:

Ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc is in early talks to buy food delivery company Deliveroo, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The value of the deal is not known, Bloomberg reported, adding that the offer would need to be considerably above Deliveroo’s latest valuation.

An Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) streaming service in China is no longer accessible. According to CNNMoney:

The world’s most popular service for live-streaming video games may have just lost a big potential market.

Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, is no longer accessible to users inside China. It has also disappeared from Apple’s iOS App Store in China.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.